


Anywhere You Go

by CaffeinatedBookFairy



Category: Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeinatedBookFairy/pseuds/CaffeinatedBookFairy
Summary: She was wasting away slowly, her body pale and gaunt, her mind fraying and breaking more and more with each day that passed. She was barely a shell of the girl she used to be – only a distant, faded shadow of his vibrant, brave Christine. And watching her slowly die as she pined away for the Phantom, for the memory of him, for the ghost that haunted her dreams at night and crowded her mind during the day, was just too much, for he loved her – he had loved her ever since she had kissed his cheek after he dove into the sea to retrieve her scarf all those years before. So he let her go.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	Anywhere You Go

**Author's Note:**

> My take on a happy ending for Christine and Erik. Set three months after the end of the Phantom of the Opera.

Christine was not sure of what had made her do it – of what had made her turn around and ask Raoul to wait for one more minute as he stood in the boat, already prying the rope that held it to the small dock loose. She just knew that she had to go to him, and tell him – tell him that she was sorry, that she never meant to betray him, that she could have never thanked him enough for being her friend, teacher and protector for most of her life…that she had loved him more than he would ever know. So she had walked quietly to the room that she had seen him disappear into, her fingers gripping her skirts, now so heavy and soaked with water, so tightly that her knuckles were as white as the fabric itself. 

There was faint music coming from the other side of the half-drawn curtain, and she immediately recognised the sound of that curious music box that Erik seemed to be so fond of. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before, and she had often wondered where he had got it from, and why he was so attached to it; she had almost asked him on several occasions, but in the end she always got distracted by something else – by a piece of his music, or something he said, or another of the strange artefacts that inhabited every nook and cranny of his home. She supposed that she would never get to ask now – she would simply never know, just as she would never know so many other things about the Phantom.

She found the thought almost unbearable.

Trying to calm her reeling thoughts, she slipped past the heavy curtain, and her heart squeezed painfully in her breast at the sight of him. Erik had always been a strong, commanding presence in any room he entered, his passion and determination always evident no matter what – in his music, in his fury, even in the way he tried to express affection and kindness; seeing him sitting down on the floor like that, his shoulders slumped in defeat and his elbows on his knees, the deformed side of his face stripped of the mask, he looked surprisingly small, his usual confidence and power dissipated. In that moment, he was not the Phantom, or her Angel – he was just Erik. He was just a man. A lonely, desperate man who had never been shown a single ounce of love or compassion in his whole life, who had seen more horrors and experienced more cruelty that anyone ever should, simply because of his face.

He looked up at her then, his eyes full of sadness and of a tenderness she had never seen before, his lips parting to quietly sing that he loved her, and she had to physically restrain herself as every instinct screamed at her to run to him – to take him into his arms, and kiss him again and again, and promise that she would never leave him, that she loved him just as he loved her, that all was forgiven. That they could run away together, and leave everything behind – the Opera, Paris, the haunting memory of the Phantom. But she could not do that, could she? Not with Raoul waiting for her in the other room, not after all that had happened. So she took his hand and placed her ring in his palm, gently closing his fingers around it, hoping that he would not hate her, that he would not forget her. That maybe, one day, he would be able to look at that ring and remember the happiness, rather than the heartbreak.

Letting go of his hand and turning away felt like the most difficult thing she had ever had to do; it was as though she had to fight for each step, as though she were trying to strain against a rope, pulling it more and more taut until it was on the verge of snapping, and then some more. Walking back to the water seemed to take an eternity, and by the time she eased herself into the narrow boat her whole body was shaking with the effort of holding herself together, of bottling up all her feelings, all her words, inside her chest tightly; she was doing the right thing – she was.

But then why did it hurt so much? Why did she feel as though her heart and soul were slowly, agonisingly being ripped away from her body as Raoul picked up the long pole from the ground and started pushing the boat across the lake?

Wrapping her arms around herself, as though the gesture would keep her from shattering in a million pieces right there and then, she dared look back over her shoulder, trying to commit everything – the bizarre assortment of curtains, furniture and objects that made up Erik’s home, the dozens of candles, the way the light reflecting off the water danced on the ceiling and walls – to memory; her lips opened of their own accord, and before she realised it she was singing, her voice soft and mournful, her eyes drifting to the curtain that shielded Erik’s room from view.

Say you’ll share with me one love, one lifetime…  
Say the word, and I will follow you…

A voice rose to join hers, and for one brief, impossible moment she thought it was him answering her plea…but it was Raoul, still facing away from her as he carefully manoeuvred the boat along the water, thinking that she was singing to him instead – as he should have, for he was her fiancé, Christine reminded herself, even as she started to feel her control slipping. He was the one she had promised herself to for the rest of her life, he who had been willing to go through hell and back only to help her.

And yet…

The boat rounded a bend, and then the Phantom’s refuge was out of her sight, the shadows growing darker and thicker as less light reached the passage. She just stood there, unmoving, for several minutes, willing herself to find some modicum of strength and stop herself from slipping into hysterics; she had made her choice, and she had to face its consequences.

But then she heard it – barely more than an echo bouncing off the stone walls of the dimly-lit tunnel, and yet still so obviously full of agony it shook her to her core. Never had she heard her Angel’s beautiful voice so hopeless, so…broken.

You alone can make my song take flight…  
It’s over now, the music of the night!

And suddenly she had no strength left. Her legs failed her, and she pulled her knees to her chest, curling herself up in a tight ball as she finally let the sobs out, pressing her face into her damp skirts to try and muffle the raw, agonising wails ripping from her chest.

What had she done?

***

The fire burned brightly in the fireplace, the flames casting a comforting glow through his study as Raoul paced back and forth in front of it, finding a little comfort in the warmth that radiated from it. It was April already, but the winter had been unusually long and bitter, and an insistent chill still lingered in the air, especially at night, forcing the servants to keep a fire going in every room of the de Chagny manor to dispel the cold. He sighed, running his hands through his hair and letting himself drop down onto the worn leather armchair nearby, slumping down in exhaustion. 

Three months. It had been three months since the incident of the Phantom of the Opera, as people had taken to referring to it lately, and no matter how much he tried, nothing had changed. And it was slowly eating at him from the inside.

At first, he had thought that it was the stress and fear that the whole ordeal had put her through that had made Christine break down in such a way – for days she could not seem to stop crying, refusing her meals, barely speaking a word to anyone, her sleep plagued by nightmares that made her wake screaming and thrashing. But days passed, turning into weeks, and instead of getting better she started getting quieter and quieter, retreating within herself in a way that had started to scare him. 

It had to be some sort of sickness, he had reasoned, as the pale, gaunt girl slowly wasting away in front of him started to look more and more like a ghost – only an empty shell of the once vibrant, brave woman he used to know. So he had summoned the best physicians in Paris, knowing that, whatever it was that was plaguing his Little Lotte, they would find a cure for it – but they all came back to him with the same answer. Christine was not sick; in fact, she did not have so much as a sniffle – but it was as though something had taken the will to leave out of her. They talked of depression, shock, even grief; they suggested that maybe losing her whole life in the fire of the Opera may have taken too much of an emotional toll on her.

It did make sense: after all, Christine had spent most of her life at the Opera; it was her home, and the motley assortment of singers, dancers and stagehands were her family. And she had dreamed of being a prima donna for her whole life – a dream that had been crushed on that fateful night three months earlier.

He had thought that maybe having Madame Giry and Meg – Christine’s mother and sister in all but name – come visit would do her good, but even the two women had not managed to get more than a few sad smiles and quiet words out of her. After that, Raoul had taken to spending all his time with Christine, determined to try and make her better somehow: he took her on walks in the gardens on sunny days, read to her, talked to her…but nothing seemed to work. She smiled at him, and thanked him quietly for being so kind to her, but many a time he would catch her just staring off into nothing, her eyes filled with a sadness so deep it hurt him like a physical blow.

And then, one night, he had heard her sing, her voice echoing faintly from her room, only a few doors away from his own. It was still as clear and high and beautiful as he remembered, and yet it was completely different; he had always been able to hear the unbridled, overwhelming joy that filled her voice whenever she sang, and yet now it was gone, her song filled with mourning and with a hopelessness so deep it made his heart break. 

It was then that he knew – knew that she was pining away for the Phantom, for the memory of the man that seemed to haunt her even now, away from the Opera Populaire and all that it represented. He felt terribly ashamed of it afterwards, but for a few minutes after his realisation hit he had been filled with a burning, raging jealousy that made him want to go find the man and murder him himself, if he was not dead and rotting already in some God-forsaken hole underneath the city as everyone said – for no matter how much he loved her, Christine had already given her heart and soul away to another. He could give her the world, and yet he was not enough – no one would ever be enough, of that he was sure, for how could anyone ever compare with the Phantom of the Opera, with Christine’s Angel of Music?

What did that man, that monster, have that he did not? How was it possible that he still had such a hold on his Christine, even now, after all this time, when most thought him dead? When she thought him dead?

But it did not matter – he would not think about that, would not let himself spiral in those dark thoughts. All he needed to do now was to take care of Christine so she could get better, and then he would lay the world at her feet, making sure that she wanted for nothing, whether she decided to marry him or not. He would be happy to spend the rest of his life as her friend and protector, if that was what she needed him to be. He loved her enough to do that, and more.

Raoul rubbed his forehead tiredly, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece; it was getting late, and he stood, wandering if maybe he would be able to convince Christine to eat more than a couple of morsels of her dinner this time. Her room was just down the corridor – he wanted to be as close to her as possible at all times – and he reached it in a few quick strides, knocking softly on the polished white wood, quietly calling for her. Hearing no noises coming from inside, he knocked again, louder this time, but there was still no answer; feeling worry starting to twist his stomach into knots, he walked in, his eyes searching for her in the dim room.

She was curled up on the window seat, a blanket wrapped around her frail shoulders, the side of her head leaning against the glass pane as she sang softly, the eerily familiar melody making his heart twist in his chest.

Masquerade…  
Paper faces on parade…  
Masquerade…  
Hide your face so the world will never find you…

He went to sit by her, gently placing his hand on her shoulder, and she glanced at him with a small smile, her eyes slightly glassy; he could feel her shivering under his touch, and she seemed to be unusually warm, the heat from her body seeping through the blanket and into his palm. He brought his other hand to her cheek, and cursed inwardly as he felt her flushed skin burning with fever; he was no doctor, but he knew that, as weak as Christine had been lately, an illness could be terribly dangerous.

He gathered her in his arms and lifted her easily – too easily, he realised, her body barely weighing anything even wrapped up in the blanket – and placed her on her bed, piling the covers up over her until she had almost disappeared under them, looking even smaller than usual in the cocoon of down and fabric. 

“Close your eyes and rest, Lotte,” he murmured, the childhood nickname he was still so fond of slipping easily past his lips as he stroked her cheek. “I’ll go send someone off to fetch the doctor and come right back, alright?”

She nodded tiredly at his words, shivering and burrowing further into the covers, and Raoul hurried out, trying to keep the gnawing worry in his stomach under control; it was still early, which meant that many servants were still going about the manor, and in only a few minutes one of the zealous stable hands was galloping off towards the doctor’s house with the order to all but drag the man back to the manor if necessary, and to be quick about it.

Feeling slightly relieved as he saw the young man setting off, Raoul returned to Christine’s chamber; she had slipped in a fitful sleep during his absence, her hands clenched around the sheets, her lips fluttering as she muttered in her sleep. He could not catch much of it – just a few words here and there, something about her father, and angels, and begging for forgiveness. And, more than once, a name. Erik.

Though he had never heard it before, he knew it had to be his name – there was such sadness in her voice when she whispered it that it could belong to no other. 

It did not take the doctor very long to arrive, the poor man looking rather flustered at being dragged away so late and in such a haste, and he immediately set to examining Christine, shooing Raoul off to wait in the hallway. Once he was finally allowed back in, what seemed like an eternity later, Raoul felt his heart plummet – the doctor’s face was grim, his kind eyes set in a gentle, almost apologetic expression. He could give her some medicines – salicylic acid to help with her temperature, and laudanum to help her sleep through the worst of it – to help bring her fever down, he said, but nothing more; her body had to get through the illness by itself, and as weak as it was, it may not be able to do so. If she did not want to fight, the elderly man explained softly, placing his hand on Raoul’s shoulder in a fatherly, comforting gesture, she may not make it.

“She is in God’s hands now, monsieur. There is little we can do but wait.”

And so, Raoul waited. For hours he sat at the foot of Christine’s bed, his head in his hands, shaking as he tried to fight back the tears coursing down his face. He loved her more than life itself – he had loved ever since she had kissed his cheek in thanks for retrieving her scarf from the water, all those years ago. And he could not bear the thought of losing her – of watching the life slowly drain from her. 

So, because he loved her, he made his choice.

Calling upon one of the maids to look after Christine during his absence, he all but ran out, barging into the stables and ordering his horse saddled at once, and a minute later he was riding into the city as though the Devil himself were on his heels, the clatter of the horse’s hooves upon the cobblestones the only sound echoing in the deserted streets. The last time she visited, a few weeks earlier, Madame Giry had left Raoul a note of her and Meg’s new address – a small house not too far from the Opera Populaire – in case he or Christine needed to reach them, and he slowed down as he searched the street for the right building.

It was a long shot, but after what the ballet mistress had told him on the night of the masquerade ball, he knew that, if the Phantom was not really dead as everyone seemed to think, she would be the one person to know where to find him. And if getting him to Christine was what he needed to do for her to pull through her illness, he would do anything in his power to make that happen – including pounding on the Girys’ door at three in the morning, as he was doing in that exact moment.

It took several minutes, but eventually the door swung open a crack, and a furious-looking Madame Giry appeared, wrapped in a green dressing robe and holding a small gas lamp in her hand. Her seething eyes fixed on Raoul, and in a moment the anger turned first into surprise, then worry.

“Monsieur le Vicomte?” she asked softly, opening the door further and stepping aside to allow him in – which Raoul gladly did, for the night was freezing, and in his haste to leave he had forgotten to get his coat on the way out. “Has something happened? Is Christine alright?”

He swallowed hard, feeling tears burning at the back of his eyes once again, and the look on his face must have been enough for her to understand, for Madame Giry placed her hand on his arm, her forehead creased in concern, and led him to the small parlour, sitting him down on the sofa and stoking the dying embers of the fire back to life before she took the seat next to him.

“She has taken ill, Madame,” Raoul whispered, finally pushing his voice past the lump in his throat. “The doctor said she may not make it if she does not find the strength to fight back. And I – I can’t just stand and wait for her to – ”

His voice broke then, and he buried his face in his hands, feeling small and hopeless as a lost child as he fought to get himself back under control. He took a deep breath, lifting his damp eyes to look straight at Madame Giry, forcing the words he had never imagined he would say – not even with a pistol pointed at his head – past his lips. 

“She needs the Phantom.”

He watched silently as the woman closed her eyes and shook her head, looking almost as if she were in pain before she looked back up at him, her green eyes shining with tears.

“The Phantom is no more, Monsieur. He died in the vaults of the Opera the night of the fire. I assume you have read of it in the papers.”

Her tone was not harsh, but the underlying accusation in her words made Raoul glance down briefly in shame; he knew that the ballet mistress had once cared for the Phantom as if he were part of her own family, and all that happened the night of the Don Juan performance was ultimately his fault. And yet, there was something in her demeanour – something that made him think that, perhaps, she was not telling him the whole truth.

“The Phantom may be gone, Madame, but what about the man?”

There was a long moment of silence, and then…

“There is nothing left of the man, either, Vicomte – a murderous mob made sure of that. I am afraid I cannot help you, no matter how much I wish I could.”

Was that it, then? Was his last hope really lost so easily? Yes, he had wanted that wretched man dead since he first set eyes on him in the cemetery many months before, and yet now he wanted nothing more than for him to be alive again, so that he could help Christine snap out of the daze she had been in since the night she left the haunted halls of the Opera behind. But if he really was dead…

He let Madame Giry walk him out, all his determination flying out of him, and after promising to send word about Christine’s condition in the morning he swung up on his horse and headed back, feeling his heart constrict in an icy grip that made it heard to breathe.

Oh, Christine…  
***

Madame Giry stood at the window, looking through a gap in the curtains, as she watched the young Vicomte ride away; he had looked so utterly devastated, she had almost – almost – confessed what she knew, but she had stopped herself at the last minute. It was not her secret to tell, but she was going to do everything she could to fix things. She had already been tempted to tell Christine months earlier, the first time she had seen her after that fateful night at the Opera Populaire – looking so small and sad and lost that her heart had called out for her, for, even though she was not her own flesh and blood, in her heart Christine was just as much her daughter as Meg was – and yet she had stopped herself, thinking that maybe the time was not right yet, that they both needed more time to heal first. But no more – Christine needed help, and there was only one person who could give her that now.

Hastily, she pulled on her boots and cloak and slipped out into the night, keeping to the shadows and walking as quickly as she could without running, afraid that the clacking of her heels on the cobblestones would draw the attention of the unsavoury characters that roamed the Parisian streets at night. She did not run into anyone – thankfully – and soon she was at the outskirts of the city, where the houses were sparser and the darkness denser. 

It was a seedy, obviously unsafe area, and Madam Giry found herself defensively drawing her cloak tighter around her body; the houses were shabby and run-down, the streets were muddy and reeked of urine and garbage, and raucous, vulgar laughter echoed from the squalid-looking taverns and brothels, which were still crowded in spite of the late hour. Keeping to the narrow, deserted alleys running between buildings, she moved even more cautiously until her destination finally came into view. 

The house was hardly more than a decrepit ruin, surrounded by a crumbling wall enclosing a wild, overgrown garden; most of the windows were smashed or boarded up, and had it not been for the faint, flickering light filtering through a curtain on the first floor – almost invisible even to her keen eyes – one would have thought the place abandoned. 

It was the perfect place to hide – especially when one was trying to make the whole of Paris believe they were dead.

Stepping over a section of the wall that had all but tumbled down, she made her way through the knee-high grass and shrivelled shrubbery to the peeling front door, and knocked, hearing the sound echoing around her much too loudly for her taste.

It took a couple of minutes, but eventually the door swung open, and she found herself staring up into the familiar face of Nadir Khan.

“Antoinette,” he said quietly, obviously surprised at her sudden appearance, as he let her in and locked the door behind them. “It’s a little late for a visit, is it not?”

“I need to talk to him,” she just said, wringing her hands together nervously. “It’s about Christine.”

“Has something happened to the girl?” Nadir asked, his features clouding with worry; though he had never met Christine himself, Madame Giry knew that Erik spoke of her often – often enough for the Persian to know how much she meant to him, even now, after being apart for so long.

“I am afraid so, my friend,” she sighed, offering him a small smile when he put a comforting hand on her shoulder; they had become quite close in the previous months, ever since he had showed up at her house only hours after the Opera Populaire had been burned down, frantic with worry as he supported Erik’s mangled, almost unrecognisable body. 

Had it not been for the faint, rasping sound of his breath, Antoinette would have thought that the strange man on her doorstep was carrying a corpse. 

As they fought to save the man’s life, Nadir had told her that he had found Erik in his lair in a pool of blood, probably left for dead after the mob was done with him, looking barely alive; there were hardly any bones in his body that had not been broken, and he was covered in so many wounds the Persian had feared that he would bleed out before he got him to a safe place. 

And yet, against all odds, Erik had pulled through – and now, three months later, his physical injuries were almost completely healed, hardly bothering him anymore.

As for the mental ones…well, those were a whole other story. His body may have been slowly mending, but I was evident that he was pining for Christine – just as she was pining for him. What she had told the Vicomte was the truth – there was nothing left of the Erik she once knew. In three months, he had not played or sung a single note – he had not even touched a page of sheet music; he seemed simply uninterested in anything that went on around him. He was hardly more than an empty shell, going through the motions without really taking notice. It was as though he simply did not know how to live when his world did not revolve around Christine.

But no more. She had taken Erik under her wing when he was only a boy several years younger than her, and though they had drifted apart during the years, she still cared for him as she would for a brother. As for Christine…to Antoinette, she was her daughter in everything but name, and she had had enough of seeing them both suffer.

“She has taken ill, and has all but given up without him. Nadir, I’m afraid – I’m afraid that she really might die. The Vicomte himself barged into my house tonight, begging me to help him find Erik and bring him to her – and you know how that boy has always hated the Phantom, in all his forms, with a passion. For him to put his pride aside like that…she really must be sick. He said something about the doctors not knowing what else to do…And she has been so sad and frail ever since she walked away from Erik…this is going to kill her. Being away from him is eating away at her from the inside; I cannot let her die – ”

“Then we shall tell him right away,” Nadir assured her, leading her to the dusty, rickety staircase that led to the upper floor. “And I will keep an eye on him, just in case. I wouldn’t want him to do anything foolish – you know Erik has very little sense when it comes to the girl.”

***

Erik was tired. It felt like it had been months since he had last gotten a decent night’s sleep – and it was probably true, for even though he had never been one for sleeping for more than a few hours consecutively, the nightmares that plagued him at night left him even more tired than he was when he went to sleep. He had woken from such a nightmare a couple of hours earlier, and he had found himself unable to get back to sleep, the horrific images from the dream still haunting him whenever he closed his eyes. 

He had been back into his lair beneath the opera house, the mob swarming around him before he had time to flee, but this time Christine had been with him – his sweet, gentle Christine – and he had been forced to watch, helpless, as the men beat and wounded her just like they had done to him, leaving her laying in a pool of blood, the life gone from her eyes – 

No, he would not go back to sleep. With those images burned into the back of his eyelids, he was sure he would not sleep again for a long time.

The Daroga, ever so meddlesome, had heard him getting up, and was now sitting in the dusty armchair opposite him, trying to make idle, pointless conversation while Erik stared into the crackling flames of the hearth. He was not even listening to what the man had to say; he was already annoyed enough by his insistent, continuous presence – as if he needed someone to look after him! – so, by God, he would not let him talk his ear off, too. There was a limit to how much of the man he could stand, after all, especially after all these years.

He almost did not hear the soft knock at the front door, so absorbed was he in his thoughts, and when he made no move to get up, Nadir sighed and headed downstairs to see to it. They rarely had anyone visiting – in fact, the only person that had ever stopped by in the few months Erik had spent recuperating in the abandoned house was Antoinette; for some reason, the woman seemed to like fussing over Erik, and though he would have never admitted it, there was a very, very small part of him that appreciated the concern that the woman showed for him. It almost – almost – made him feel…normal.

Several minutes passed, however, and when there were no signs of Nadir returning upstairs, Erik pushed himself out of the armchair, his mostly healed ribs giving a slight twinge as he got to his feet and reached for the walking stick that rested against the side of the fireplace; he rarely needed it anymore, but on some nights – such as that one – his right leg still bothered him a little, and he needed the additional support. Not that that surprised him – the men that had almost killed him had managed to break it in three places, so it was a small miracle in and of itself that he was not left a cripple in the first place.

As he neared the door, he could hear faint voices coming from downstairs, and he listened carefully; he was quite surprised when he realised that the second voice belonged to Antoinette, for it was almost five in the morning – what was she doing there at such a time?

Straining his ears, he could catch snippets of their conversation, and what he heard made him feel as though he had just been plunged into icy water.

Christine…taken ill…all but given up…she really might die…the Vicomte…begging…sick…so sad and delicate…this is going to kill her…being away from him is eating away at her from the inside…

He almost crumpled to the floor in agony, each of the words like a knife that had been thrust between his ribs; his Christine, his angel, was sick – she was dying! And, worst of all, she was letting herself die because of him! Oh, he should have gone to her as soon as he was well enough to move, as soon as his injuries had allowed him to get out of bed! Why, why had he ever thought that leaving her with that fop of the Vicomte would be the best thing for her? Why did she have to suffer even now that he had forced himself out of her life? She was supposed to be happy – she was supposed to live a long, healthy life by the side of the rich, handsome man who had been her childhood sweetheart…how could she be dying instead? How could things have gone so dreadfully, horribly wrong?

His knees failed him then, and he fell to the ground, burying his face in his hands with a groan that seemed to belong more to a wounded animal than to a man even to his own ears.

His fault. It was all his fault. He had been so stupid – so jealous and angry, all the time…He had let his rage and obsession push him to the brink of insanity, and now Christine was the one paying for it, as she always did.

But no more.

He had to go to her.

The ache in his bones forgotten, he pushed himself up to his feet with a strength and determination he had not felt in months, plucking his cape, which was covered in a fine layer of dust from the lack of use, from the hook it was hanging on and quickly throwing it around his shoulders. His mask was sitting on a small table by the armchair he previously occupied, the white porcelain glinting almost red in the flickering firelight. Without hesitating, he reached for it, instinctively raising his hand to fit it to the right side of his face with the ease that came with over a decade of practice.

It was strange, but he did not feel any of the confidence that he had once associated with putting the mask on. But, after all, that had been before – before the night of the Don Juan disaster, before Christine looked at his face and saw a man, rather than a monster, before she kissed him and made all his defences crumble, leaving only him – only Erik. 

He wondered if he would ever come to understand just how much she had changed him with that simple gesture – how human she had made him, without even knowing.

Oh, Christine…

Opening the window took a surprising amount of effort, the warped, grime-caked frame creaking and scraping loudly as he forced the pane upwards, but eventually he managed, swinging one of his legs over the sill; he heard the door open behind him just as he was about to pull himself out, and he turned his head to look at Antoinette and Nadir, both of whom had matching looks of shock on their faces. 

They would not stop him, that he knew, just as he knew that that would have wanted him to have a plan, to be careful, to think – 

And he had no time to think, not right now.

So he stepped outside and let himself slide down the rusty drainpipe that ran down the side of the house, ignoring their worried calls above him as he landed softly in the overgrown grass; the small, patched-up shelter where Nadir kept the horses was just around the corner, hidden at the back of the house, and it only took a minute before he had his Caesar saddled and ready, the great black horse pawing the ground impatiently as he waited to be let out. 

He hoisted himself up on the saddle and gripped the reins tightly as he urged the horse on with a nudge of his heels; as if sensing his rider’s urgency, Caesar shot forward like a bullet, and Erik could not help the small smile tilting his lips upwards as the horse galloped through the wild garden and easily jumped a low, crumbling section of the wall, landing on the street with a clatter.

If it had been any other moment, he would have enjoyed the freedom, for after three months sitting inside a dusty, mouldy house even the vaguely malodourous air that lingered on the dilapidated streets felt like a blessing to his lungs, but he found that he could not – not with thoughts of Christine fading away before he could reach her eating away at him.

It was going to be a long way to the de Chagny manor.

He rode like a madman, driving Caesar to gallop as fast as he could, the sound of the horse’s hooves beating on the ground echoing like thunder in the deserted streets; they did not encounter anyone – thankfully, for Erik imagined they would have made quite the frightening sight to behold: the great black horse and its masked rider, racing down the street like they had the hounds of Hell on their tail…now, that would have definitely made the old rumours about the Opera Ghost resurface, and that was the last thing he needed.

Finally – finally – after what seemed like an eternity, the de Chagny manor came into view, looming dark and massive in the faint pre-dawn light; by some miraculous stroke of luck, the gate was left wide open and unmanned – probably left that way by a careless servant heading off to the market early to get the best wares – and Erik slowed Caesar down and dismounted, heading for a large, thick cluster of trees that seemed to run along the whole right side of the property. Leading the horse by the reins, he carefully made his way through the underbrush and twisting roots, until he managed to get as close to the house as he could; he still would have to run along a good hundred yards of open lawn, but the closer he could leave Caesar, the better – just in case he had to leave in a hurry.

The Vicomte may had gone to Antoinette hoping to find him and get his help, but that still did not mean that he trusted the fop one bit. He cared about Christine – that, he had to begrudgingly admit – but he also knew that the boy would have gladly seen him dead.

Tying the horse’s reins to a low branch, he gave the animal a fond pat on the neck and slithered out of the cover of the trees, moving quietly as a shadow as he quickly crossed the open expanse of grass in a low crouch, feeling uneasy as he found himself without any means of cover. Had anyone looked out one of the windows on that side of the house in that moment, he would have definitely been spotted – and then who knew what would have happened!

But he managed to make it to the side of the house, where the shadows were still thick enough to offer him some form of concealment – though not for long, judging from the pale grey sliver of light that was appearing over the horizon. 

It was only then that he realised that he had no idea of where Christine’s room was, and he mentally berated himself for not waiting a few minutes more and asking Antoinette for some information on the house before he left; there had to be dozens of bedrooms in a mansion that size, and that potentially meant searching for hours before he found her. 

And yet, there had to be a faster way…

Staying close to the wall, he walked around the side of the Eastern wing to the back of the building; the gardens were large and carefully tended to, and even though many plants were still bare and the flowers were only just starting to bloom due to the lingering cold weather, he could tell that they would be gorgeous when spring finally came. His eyes were drawn to a small rose garden, surrounded by a low wall and interspersed with benches and fountains, and he just knew that Christine’s room had to be overlooking that small corner, for he was sure that she would have loved the view. 

There only seemed to be two rooms – both of them on the first floor, with wide glass doors leading onto equally wide balconies – that were close enough to the rose garden for it to actually be visible from the windows, and, deciding that they were his best bet for the time being, Erik climbed up the ivy-covered trellis, along a narrow stone moulding, and over the railing of the closest balcony. His ascent was somewhat slower and clumsier than it once would have been, thanks to his slightly stiff leg, but he still managed, stopping for a moment to catch his breath once his feet were back on solid ground. He went to the window to peek through the glass, and he had to stifle a surge of disappointment as he saw the room dark and empty, the large bed on the back wall untouched and the fireplace unlit. 

Shaking his head, he sidled along the decorative sill that stretched between the two balconies; the distance was short enough that he could have probably leapt from one railing to the other, but he did not want to take any chances, considering how weak his muscles were after the months of forced bed rest.

Landing quietly on the stone slabs that paved the terrace, he crept to the window, carefully glancing inside; the room was bathed in a faint, warm glow, probably from a fireplace he could not see from where he was standing, and there seemed to be someone in the lush canopied bed, but the partly closed drapes made it hard to see…And yet, there was something – a glimpse of a pale, slender hand, a flash of dark curls – that made his heart beat faster and his breath catch in his throat, and then the figure shifted, her face coming into view, and Erik felt his heart suddenly swell in his chest.

Christine.

He reached out, his shaking fingers closing around the slender handle of the glass door so tightly his knuckles turned white, and he let out a shaky breath when he found it unlocked, the mechanism giving way under the pressure of his hand as the pane silently swung open. Careful not to make any noise, he slipped inside and closed the door behind him, suddenly conscious of how cold the air was outside.

Hardly daring to breathe, he walked across the room, his eyes fixed on her face; his memories had not done her justice – she was even more beautiful than he remembered. And yet he felt a deep, gnawing worry settle in his stomach at the same time, for she was so pale, and so very thin, the circles under her eyes so dark they resembled bruises and the hand resting on the pillow by her head so delicate and frail he was afraid it would break if he dared to take it in his. She almost looked like a ghost – a beautiful, fading ghost – and the thought filled him with a terror he had never known before.

He could not lose her – he just could not bear it. And he knew, with sharp clarity, that if she were to die he would follow right after her, for no matter what, she was his life, his light. Even for the past three months, the one thing keeping him alive had been the thought of her, and the very idea of a world without her held nothing for him. 

Anywhere you go, let me go too, he thought, his legs failing him for the second time that night as he fell to his knees next to her bed, tears suddenly filling his eyes and making his vision swim. Be it this world, or Heaven, or Hell, I will follow you anywhere, my love.

“So, I was right – you are alive, after all.”

The soft-spoken sentence almost made Erik jump, and he snapped his head up, his eyes immediately focusing on the hunched form of the Vicomte – how had he not seen him when he came into the room? – sitting with his elbows resting on his knees on a small armchair by the fireplace. For one heart-stopping moment he was afraid that it was a trap, that the young man had used Christine’s illness to get rid of him once and for all, but then he really took him in – he looked tired and, Erik thought, far older than he had only a few months earlier, his eyes marked by deep circles, his face unshaven and his hair limp. He was no threat to him – not tonight, at least.

“Just barely, and no thanks to you, de Chagny,” he murmured, not quite ready to let go of his hostility towards the other man yet. “I was not planning on coming back – she deserves far better than what I could have ever offered her. You would have kept her safe, loved her, made sure she wanted for nothing – that’s why I let her go.”

The Vicomte nodded, pushing himself to his feet and coming to stand at the foot of Christine’s bed, only a few feet from where Erik was still kneeling on the floor. 

“I know,” he said softly, gazing over Christine’s features with such a look in his eyes – such pain and love and sorrow – that Erik could not help sympathising with him just a little bit, for he was just as worried over Christine as he was, of that he was sure. 

Maybe they were not that different, after all – not in that, not where it really mattered.

“That’s why I went to Madame Giry,” the boy – for he really was so young that he could hardly be considered more than a boy – continued, his expression pained. “I hoped she would help me, and – and it looks like she did, although not quite how I had thought she would.”

He was quiet for several seconds, then, and Erik almost thought he was not going to say anything more when he spoke again.

“I tried – I tried everything. When I thought she was sick, I summoned the best physicians in France, but she wasn’t ill, she was just…fading. And nothing I did ever helped. You have no idea of what it was like – watching as she wasted away right before my eyes. She thought you dead, and it was as if – as if she wanted to die, too. I foolishly thought that I would be enough for her to change her mind, for her to want to live, but I wasn’t – you were the one she needed, the one she wanted, right from the very start. I think I always knew, on some level, that she…that she had always loved you more. I thought I could ignore it, but I – I just could not just sit and watch as she destroyed herself. And you have no idea – it’s killing me, doing this now – but I want her to live, and…and I want her to be happy, and healthy as she used to be. And I cannot give her that, but you can.”

Erik could do nothing but stare at the man in front of him, hardly able to believe the words coming out of his mouth. He knew that the Vicomte had come looking for him, asking for his help, but he would have never imagined to find him so wrecked, to hear him say in so many words how much he loved Christine – enough to let her go, to step aside and let Erik have her, all for her sake, even though it was obvious that it was ripping him apart.

Just like he had done himself three months earlier, when he had let Christine go back with her Raoul, thinking that she would be happier with him, even though doing so had torn his very heart and soul to shreds. 

And all of a sudden, he felt a surge of respect for the young man standing in front of him. 

“I’ll do everything I can,” he promised, and the Vicomte gave him a curt nod, even as his eyes visibly glistened with tears.

“If you ever hurt her, Phantom, there will be no place on Earth where I will not find you, and nothing will stop me from killing you then,” he warned, his voice unwavering in spite of the glimmer of tears in his eyes, and Erik nodded, knowing that his threat was absolutely serious – he had no doubt that the young de Chagny would chase him to the ends of the world if he ever hurt Christine again.

“I haven’t been the Phantom for a while, Vicomte,” he said quietly, twisting his lips in a humourless half-smile. “Simply Erik will do. And I trust that you will – I would die before I ever made her suffer again.”

“That’s good,” the other man muttered, tiredly running a hand through his hair. “That makes two of us.”

Then he walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him as he went, and Erik was left alone with Christine.

He reached out to brush a stray curl away from her face, letting his fingertips trail along her forehead and down her cheek in the process; she really was there, and this time it was not a dream, or a nightmare – no one would come and take her away from him, and he would not wake up suddenly to find her gone. 

He had been such a fool, thinking he could stay away from her, when she was the very foundation of his world. 

And yet, even as relief at being back at her side swept through him, he could feel worry still twisting in the pit of her stomach, for her skin was still far too warm to the touch, her fever evidently not having fully broken yet. 

He brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, and she stirred slightly, a small crease appearing between her eyebrows as her eyelids fluttered open, her eyes – those beautiful, soulful brown eyes he loved so much – staring right at him. They were heavy with sleep, glassy from the fever and slightly unfocused, probably due to whatever she had been given to help her sleep not having quite been cleared from her system yet – laudanum, he suspected, judging from the small bottle of reddish-brown liquid on her nightstand.

“Oh, Erik,” she whispered, and he was sure – completely, utterly sure – that her voice had never sounded as beautiful as it did in that moment, not even as they sang their duet together on the Opera stage the night of the Don Juan disaster. “I – where are we?”

“We are in your room, mon ange,” he murmured gently, the sweet endearment slipping past his lips before he could even realise it as he smoothed her hair back with one hand while gently wrapping the other around her fingers. “How are you feeling?”

“That’s odd,” she murmured, blinking a few times, furrowing her brow slightly. “We’re never here together – we’re always at the Opera house. In all my dreams I’m back there, with you – like we should have been.”

There was such sadness in her voice, he felt his own heart constrict in response; she sounded so small, so lost…He stroked her hair again, tucking the strands behind her ear.

“This is not a dream, Christine. I’m here – I’m really here. I’ve come back for you.”

“You always say that,” she replied, slipping her fingers in the spaces between his own, linking their hands. “And then every time I wake up and realise it was all a dream, it hurts even more. It’s all my fault, Erik – if I had not gone, if I had not left you, maybe you’d not be – If I had tried to stop them, they would not have – ”

Her eyes were filled with tears now, and he could not stop himself – he pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the bed and gathered her in his arms, blankets and all, holding her tightly to his chest and pressing his face into her curls; she felt light – far too light, he realised, even though she had always been a slip of a girl – and he felt the urge to protect her take even deeper root inside of him. He would take care of her, make sure she healed – and the first step was definitely to get some food into her soon. Soon, but not right now, he reminded himself. Right now, she needed comfort, and he would do anything to give her that.

“Never think that was your fault, my love, never,” he whispered, feeling his heart beating erratically in his chest as she lay her head on his shoulder, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck. “You could have done nothing to stop them, and I thank God you left when you did, for I cannot even think of what they would have done to you had they found you with me when they burst into my house. But I made it, Christine – I’m alive, I’m here. And I will never, ever leave your side again, my love, I promise.”

“You feel so real,” she murmured, lifting her head to look at him, pain and confusion written all over her features. She placed her hand on the good side of his face, gently stroking his nose, his cheek, the line of his jaw, looking like she was trying to figure out some complicated enigma. “How can you feel so real?”

Her hand moved towards his mask, and he knew what was about to happen; he did not move, did not even flinch, as her small fingers slipped under the edge and pulled gently, revealing the distorted side of his face. And still, she did not stop in her exploration – she simply placed the mask down onto the bed, and let her fingers slide over the misshapen side of his nose, the sunken eye socket, the bumps and ridges of the scarred tissue covering his cheek, her touch light as a feather. As she studied him, he studied her back, waiting for her to recoil from him, but her expression never changed, the conflicting emotions showing clearly in her eyes even through the drug-induced haze. He let his eyes slip closed for a moment as he leaned into her touch, and he pulled her even closer, still not fully able to believe that it was real, that she was there, in his arms.

When he opened his eyes again, she was still staring at him, but there was awareness in her gaze now; her eyes were wide, and he could feel the hand still resting on his cheek trembling slightly as a whirlwind of emotions flashed in her eyes, almost too fast for him to register – sadness, doubt, disbelief, realisation, shock…and then joy, and a love that made every cell in his body sing in recognition.

“It’s you,” she whispered, so quietly he barely heard her. “You’re really here.”

He nodded, smiling as she let out a teary laugh, and a moment later she was holding him just as tightly as he was holding her, her arms wound around his neck as she sobbed in his shoulder. He rocked her gently as she cried, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, humming the lullabies that had so often calmed her as a child, when she was still a lost little ballet rat struggling to fall back asleep after a nightmare in her narrow bed in the dormitories and he was the dark guardian angel watching over her. Slowly, her tears subsided, and she pulled away slightly, giving him a shy look, her teeth tormenting her lower lip in that nervous habit that she had had ever since he could remember.

“What is it, mon ange?” he asked softly, taking her face in his hands and gently wiping her tears away with his thumbs, smiling at the way she tilted her head in his palm to rest her cheek in his hand for a few moments. She just shook her head slightly, giving him a small smile and bringing her hands up to cup his face, mirroring the way he was holding her. 

“I missed you so much,” she murmured, leaning her forehead against his and closing her eyes, the warmth of her skin reminding him that she was still sick, that the danger that was her fever was still very real. “I should have never left you, I – ”

He hushed her softly, stroking her mussed curls and holding her close, tucking her head under his chin.

“I missed you too, my love. But you need to rest now – there will be time to talk later. You are still running a fever, you need to sleep and get better.”

She nodded weakly against his chest, her body curling further into his embrace as her hands fisted into his shirt, as though she were afraid that he would disappear if she let go of him even for a moment. Oh, Christine.

“Stay,” she whispered, her voice muffled against his shoulder, sounding small and tired all of a sudden, as though the few minutes they had spent talking had thoroughly exhausted her. “Please.”

“Of course, ma petite,” he immediately replied – as if he could ever even think of leaving her side now that she was in his arms once more. “I will be here with you for as long as you’ll want me to.”

“Forever, then?” Her voice was so soft that he barely heard her, but the words were enough to make his heart feel as though it had swelled to twice its size. He nodded, pressing his lips to the crown of her head, the familiar scent of vanilla and lavender filling his nose as he breathed her in. He remembered the first time he had gifted her with a bar of that particular soap – she had only been at the Opera a few weeks, and she had come into the chapel for their lesson crying because one of the other ballet rats had been teasing her. Even then, he had been unable to just stand by and watch her suffer, even for something as trivial as that, so he had left a bar of that sweet-scented soap on her pillow that night in the hope of making her feel a little better. 

That same night, he also left a rather large spider he had found wandering in the rafters in the bed of the girl who had been tormenting his little protégée; the nasty ballet rat never bothered her again after that, though Christine never did know why. 

She had liked it, thanking him again and again for the present (for she did know that it was from him, of course), so he kept leaving her some every once in a while, just to see that sweet smile lighting up her face, and she had eventually taken to buying it for herself every time she went to the market with the little Giry girl.

That she still used it, even now, after all these years, warmed him to his very soul.

“Of course, mon ange,” he murmured, gently lowering her back onto the mattress, tucking the blankets around her carefully so she would be warm. “Forever, if that’s what you wish.”

As he held her close, quietly singing her to sleep, he could not help the hope bubbling in his chest, almost unbearably bright after his months of dull apathy.

Anywhere you go, let me go too…  
That’s all I ask of you.


End file.
